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140 reasons why politicians are out of touch

They may not control the message, but MPs can still meet voters on the digital doorstep

Alastair Campbell

October 17 2012, 1:01am, The Times

When the media declared that Mitt Romney “won” the first TV debate with President Obama, they were relying not only on their own judgment, but on that of 10.3 million tweets posted during the 90-minute joust.

That was a Twitter record for a political event. Indeed, even in the 24 hours prior to the debate, there were more tweets than were gathered for all three presidential debates in 2008.

The speed of change is breathtaking. Facebook, founded in 2004, recently recorded its one billionth devotee. YouTube, created in 2005, now has more videos uploaded in one month than three US TV networks created in 60 years. Twitter, launched in 2006, has more than 500 million users, with around 300,000 joining every day. The number of…